Sinner or Saint?

My daughter had her first communion last week. But first, she had to complete her first reconciliation. She had been talking about this event all year and, of course, I had a few questions for her about the process. Namely, when she needed to confess and what atrocities she had to confess.

I recall going to confession as a child and debating about what to tell the priest and what to keep to myself. It wasn’t necessarily that I was such a bad kid at the age of eight that I thought my sins were unforgivable, I just didn’t want to admit I was wrong about anything. Telling the school priest that I had been mean to my mom or lied to a friend seemed like a not so smart thing to do. I was always a skeptical child, so I was pretty sure the priest was going to blab all of my dirt to my teachers. I pictured them sitting around the lunch table gossiping about what the kids said to their moms and each other. I didn’t want anyone to have any dirt they could hold over my head.

A month ago when my mini-me and I were talking about confession she asked what kind of things I had talked to the priest about when I was her age. I told her it was mostly me being sassy with my mom or not being as nice as I could be to friends. “What do you do if you don’t have anything to confess?”  she asked with a straight face. I told her I could give her a list if she needed one. She sounded just like my Dad who jokes that he has nothing to repent for. Unfortunately, she wasn’t joking. In her mind it was a totally valid question.

The day before her first communion was spent preparing for the big day. The kids practiced the readings, found their places in the chapel where they would sit with their families and tasted the wine. I had learned earlier that they give all of the kids a sip of the wine the day before so nobody spits it out on their dress at the main event. My daughter had a rather lengthy discussion with a saleswoman at the shoe store about this as we picked out a pair of white heels. She talked animatedly about how disrespectful it would be to God to have some kid spit out the blood of his son all over the floor. She had already talked to me repeatedly about the church wine. She was scared to drink it because she thought it would taste bad. I wouldn’t go so far as to say she was obsessed, but the wine was on her mind much more than her weekly spelling words or current lego project. I was happy to know it would be put to bed after her retreat.

When she came home from school that day she had two things to share. The first was that she did make a confession and it was that she made me crazy in the morning (which is true). She was not given penance with the rosary, but was instead told to cut it out. She of course shared this information with her grandparents, but did not want to divulge the conversation to me. Smart kid. The second piece of information she shared with her dad (again, not with me). She walked in and promptly told him “Dad, I loved the wine. It tasted so good!” He immediately texted me to let me know that fear was coursing through his veins. Well, that seems about right – my kid worried about the wine for a month and we will now worry about it for the next twenty or more years.

 

Old Guys Dig Me

I love our new gym. It’s full of old guys and soccer moms. Last week, one of the old guys walked up to me while I was about an hour into my ride on the elliptical. He stopped next to the machine with a big smile and said “I see you here a lot. I come here a lot too, so I like to meet the people I see every day. My name is Jack.” I introduced myself but he was a little hard of hearing and kept repeating my name back to me as different words like gent, jan and gin. I finally spelled it for him J-E-N to which he replied “oh, short for Janet!” When I told him it was short for Jennifer he looked at me like I was nuts. I just smiled and kept jogging.

Before walking away he said “Oh, and I have dementia, so we will probably meet over and over again since I might not remember this conversation.” I told him I looked forward to it with a smile. You have to love a guy who has a sense of humor about his condition. It reminded me of something my Dad would say.

After a week of being away, I visited the gym yesterday and who did I run into – my best bud Jack. I was thinking about what new characters I could introduce myself as when he walked up and said “let me see if I can remember…. Jan, right?” I replied “Close, Jen” using my best midwest flat E. He leaned in a little closer and said “Jan, that’s what I said!” I guess I should have expected it after it being the name that appeared on my Starbucks cups all week on vacation. Maybe it’s time to head to Staples for some name tags. That or the Secretary of State to fill out the paperwork to change my name to Janet.

*I wrote this piece while listening to my daughter watch TV after being away from YouTube for a whole week!

Negotiating With a Shark

My dad is a do-it-yourself kind of guy. He cuts his own lawn (at two houses), paints his own walls (naked), installs his own dock and boat lift (with minor disasters) and does his own bathroom renovations. And for as long as I can remember I have been his trusty assistant. When I was younger he had to bribe me to help, now I have to bully my way in. He is getting older and I don’t want him to break a hip or anything. If he did, I may have to figure out how to finish the project alone!

My dad is currently renovating the master bathroom at his lake house. It’s a fairly large undertaking since he is moving plumbing. He started demolition last week. Of course I have been there for a lot of it. Destruction is kind of my thing. I got to go swing a sledge hammer at walls for hours at a time. That’s not work, that’s therapy. One day while I was hammering out six inches of tile and cement my dad thanked me for my help. I thanked him for my anger issues which were clearly driving that work vehicle. Truth be told, my dad is one of the few people who doesn’t invoke anger in me.

Home improvement projects have always been a family affair. I grew up with a hammer in my hand and we are trying to place my daughter on the same path. We have attempted to include her as often as possible in work projects. Unfortunately, she doesn’t yet have the kind of anger issues that would lead her to hammer therapy, but a few more years with me should do it. My dad gets her to work with him by paying her. Bribery has always worked with her too. He gets this child to pick up filthy seaweed from the shore in the summer and crusty old leaves in the fall. It’s amazing to me since I can’t get her to pick up the clothes from her bedroom floor, allowance or not.

Today she came out to the lake after school to help demolish some walls and haul out the trash. She actually wanted to work and took part in every aspect of the project. I did have to take a broom away from her after she almost sterilized me while I was facing the opposite direction. I’m not sure what she was trying to sweep but she managed to position the handle in between my legs and pull up at the same time. Luckily I am still quite a bit taller than she is or some emergency room worker would have had an interesting story to go home with tonight.

After a few hours of hard labor we called it quits and headed home. As soon as we got in the car my daughter asked “am I getting paid for this? Grandpa always pays me.” I told her she had a choice, she could either be helpful and do the work for free like the rest of us were doing or she could get paid. The catch was if she got paid she would have to pay my dad every time she used the bathroom in the future. I thought that was a fair trade. She responded with “how much would it cost to use the bathroom?” At least she is using her math skills!

I wrote this piece while covered in dust and listening to Ratboy (how appropriate).

You Make Me Wanna Puke

I’m beginning to wonder if a few days with me makes my family sick. Every other time we go out of town or spend a long weekend together we all end up sick. I mean, I get it – I make myself a little sick on a regular basis, but it would be great to spend some time together without having to worry which one of them is going to start throwing up first. I would like to say I am not the cause of it, but I seem to always be the last one to catch whatever plague takes down our house. I spend the first few days after vacation taking care of the other two and then my mom has to take over babysitting while I barf for a day uninterrupted. I attribute this to me having a higher tolerance for myself than my other family members.

The last few times we have gone away for a short weekend have both been to water parks. I know those pools are giant petri dishes so I can’t say I am surprised by our illnesses. What does shock me a little is that my husband always gets it the worst. I would think my daughter would be the one to ingest the most pee from the water slides. Go figure.

The worst part about the illness that wiped us out this time around was that it struck on my daughter’s eighth birthday almost to the hour in which she was born. We returned home from our mini-vaca and went out to dinner with her grandparents to celebrate this monumental milestone. Mini-me decided against getting a cake which should have been a clue that something was amiss. This kid loves cake like Charlie Sheen loves cocaine and hookers.

By the time my 8.01 year old was getting into bed, she was complaining about a stomach ache. She lasted about 15 minutes before she started throwing up. I don’t think anyone in our house slept more than a half hour at a time the entire night. For me it was similar to the night I gave birth to her, and many nights after. Luckily, the wee one recovers quickly like her mom and was done barfing within 24 hours. Her father on the other hand has been down for the count for several days. He ended up at urgent care having bags upon bags of fluid pumped into his veins. I attribute this to his inability to properly process vitamin JEN since he hasn’t had a four day dose in awhile.

I’m trying not to take this too personally since I know there are tons of people who encounter me daily who don’t get sick. I guess I am like good chocolate – a little is awesome, but too much may make you hurl for a day or two. Maybe I should get a little consumer warning sign to carry around with me, or better yet a tattoo of the side effects of my sparkling personality. Until then my family is going to have to learn to toughen up or take me in smaller doses.

I wrote this blog while convalescing and listening to the Queers!!

Sock It To Me

Apparently my house now has communal socks. A month ago I bought myself new gym socks, but several pair have disappeared. A few weeks ago I found a pair on my daughter’s feet. The best part was she just thought I bought her new socks since she found them in her drawer. This is what happens when my husband folds the clothes. He has no idea what undergarments belong to who either. I found a pair of Wonder Woman underpants in my drawer awhile ago. They were a size 8, as in made for an 8 year old child.

One of the problems is that I buy cool socks. I bought a set of Harry Potter themed socks that have slowly migrated to my daughter’s drawer. The only ones she has not tried to swipe are the Slytherin pair. Anything that is Slytherin themed clearly belong to me, but the rest are apparently up for grabs.

It’s bad enough that my kid steals my socks, but now my husband is stealing them too. He met me at the gym the other day and promptly said “I think i’m wearing your socks.” I told him to pull up his pant leg so I could see and sure enough, I recognized them. He proceeded to tell me how soft and comfortable they were to which I responded “I should hope so. They’re cashmere!” I’m glad he was able to spend his last day at the gym in total comfort, but I don’t know if I even want the socks back now that they spent six miles on his sweaty feet. When he got home, he reached in his drawer and handed me another pair of the same socks. He had managed to confiscate two pair of my favorite socks without me even noticing.

I knew I would one day have to start keeping tabs on my clothing, but I thought it wouldn’t be until my kid was a teenager. I didn’t think I would be needing a lock on my sock drawer. And I certainly didn’t think I would be protecting my socks from my husband. Somehow I have a feeling I will be viewing him in one of my socks in a reenactment of a Red Hot Chili Peppers show circa 1988 soon.


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I Can’t Quit You

The quietest sauna in this zip code!

We finally cancelled our gym membership after complaining about the place for a year. We were paying a small fortune to change in filthy locker rooms, shower with mold and get hit on by hairy old fat men in the co-ed sauna. I know that last one might seem like a perk to some people, but seriously, I have been given the head to toe eyeball by an old man that I thought was wearing a sweater in the sauna. It was, in fact, just back hair. Not just any back hair – grey back hair, and lots of it. At least I didn’t have to see him later in the locker room, unlike my husband.

When I went to the membership desk to cancel, the woman behind the counter asked me why. I said “where do I start?” before launching into my three page list of reasons. She stopped me after every few reasons on the list to tell me what her solution was. I have to give her credit – she didn’t even have to read from a script and some of her solutions were not completely terrible. For instance, she said that she could ask the cleaning staff to clean the locker rooms. What a concept! I told her ultimately they can clean the locker rooms, keep an eye on the sauna and police the training area where people blare dance music on their phones, but they can’t change their clientele and that is their biggest problem. I pointed out that they had signs posted over all of the drinking fountains that read “Do not spit in the water fountain!” I don’t want to share space with people who don’t know that it’s not okay to spit in the drinking fountain.

First they lift, then they spit!

I know I have kind of high standards and some of the things that got my panties all bunched up didn’t affect my husband in the least (the old dudes in the sauna for instance). He complained about very few things – mostly the fact that he could never find a parking space and that every time he went to put his water bottle in a cup holder there was a wad of gum occupying the space. Strangely, I never noticed gum in the cup holders, but I once found some in the bottom of a locker. He was also sick of smelling weed in the locker room and finding the source of the smell in the form of a gaggle of twenty year old “boys” hanging out in the sauna talking about their many sexual conquests. I’m sure all their stories were true. I mean they were hanging out in a sauna, half naked with a bunch of other dudes on a saturday night. Plus, they were talking about what studs they were, so clearly they must be!

We only have a few weeks left before our membership expires and I am getting every penny worth in these last few weeks. I have been at that place for a few hours a day every day of the week, Of course I am turning into a gym rat two weeks before bailing. I noticed last week that the water fountain signs have been removed. The locker rooms and showers are still filthy, but the life guards have been patrolling the sauna. I haven’t seen my friend with the sweater, so maybe he was told his presence was a health code violation.

While I was walking out of the gym last week a couple was walking through with a salesman. They were asking about parking and stated that it was difficult for them to find a place at 8 pm the first part of February. The salesman responded “yeah, parking in January is hard because everyone goes to the gym after the new year. It gets better.” I know that after the first of the year I have a hard time remembering what year it is, but this poor sucker was stuck In January. As I passed by I looked right at the couple and said “It’s not any better in June!” Sometimes I just can’t help myself.

This post was brought to you by coffee and the Beastie Boys!!

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